Is Pep the greatest manager of all time?

VorZakone said:
But Barca pre-Pep was not that good. And Xavi arguably found a new level under Pep as he was about 28 when Pep came in.
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I dont think you can argue that. Barcelona considered selling Xavi to Chelsea and started van Bommel over him in a CL final. He was a good midfielder at that time but not the legendary midfielder he is consider now.

Xavi only became the great Xavi that we all remember since Pep became his manager.
 
Flying high said:
There's a difference between saying he's not particularly good as a left winger and saying he's shit. Especially when England have a CF who likes to drop deep and are desperate for a flyer on the left to stretch the game.
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He plays mostly on the left for City, this was his first year as a 10.
 
padr81 said:
Achieving a number of CL's only one manager has beaten in football history in just 16 years. Fraud. You sure proved your point.
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Look at the squads and transfer funds he has had over those 16 years, winning only 3 with those teams and resources is a terrible return for a so called world class manager.
 
wildflower2007 said:
No he's not the greatest.

He's a great manager, I will give you that, but he's not the GOAT. For me, Fergie will always be that and not just because he's been our manager.

Fergie managed to take a shit club like Aberdeen to a European Cup.
Fergie managed to bring United up to the best club in the world when it was utter shite and getting its arse kicked by Liverpool for a decade.

Fergie never had or walked into a club that had unlimited resources and world class players. Everything he did was done from scratch.

Pep, on the other hand, has walked into top clubs from the start, Bayern, Barcelona, City, where funds and players have been there before he came.
Sure, he's done great while he's been there, but there's a world of difference between having the skills to take Aberdeen to a Euro Cup and prime Barca.

When Pep joins Kilmarnock or St. Mirror and wins a Euro cup, then I'll gladly admit he's the best. Until then, no chance.
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It was the Cup Winners Cup not a European Cup (the predecessor to the CL).
 
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RedRocket9908 said:
Look at the squads and transfer funds he has had over those 16 years, winning only 3 with those teams and resources is a terrible return for a so called world class manager.
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Ah yes cause when Chelsea were spending crazy they were racking them up, same for PSG and this current £1bn United squad are rolling in them.
 
Red the Bear said:
Rejuvenating Barcelona by bringing in fresh blood and leading them to the highs they did is his greatest achievement but it's not as if they were useless, they had won the CL two years prior and reached the semi finals the year before, Spain had also won the euros that summer.

Bayern had won the treble the year he went there.
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The team that started the CL final in 2006
Valdes
Oleguer Marquez Puyol VanBronckorst
VanBommel, Edmilson Deco
Guily Etoo Ronaldinho

Team that started 2009 final

Valdes
Puyol Toure Pique Sylvinho
Xavi Busquets Iniesta
Messi Etoo Henry

The bold are the only thing common in both starting 11. A completely different team
 
RedRocket9908 said:
Look at the squads and transfer funds he has had over those 16 years, winning only 3 with those teams and resources is a terrible return for a so called world class manager.
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The only manager who has more CL than him won 3 with Madrid the greatest spending club of all time and 2 with heavy spending Milan the biggest spenders of the 80s 90s and early 2000s
 
kaiser1 said:
The team that started the CL final in 2006
Valdes
Oleguer Marquez Puyol VanBronckorst
VanBommel, Edmilson Deco
Guily Etoo Ronaldinho

Team that started 2009 final

Valdes
Puyol Toure Pique Sylvinho
Xavi Busquets Iniesta
Messi Etoo Henry

The bold are the only thing common in both starting 11. A completely different team
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And I give him credit for that.

Barcelona however we're not shit either way before he came on.
 
Red the Bear said:
And I give him credit for that.

Barcelona however we're not shit either way before he came on.
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They just finished trophyless, 18points off the league winner. 12months later they won every trophy in football and were tagged the best club football side ever seen
Like Enzo Maresca change Chelsea team and make them sextuple winners by next summer (Despite Chelsea winning the CL a few seasons ago)
 
kaiser1 said:
The only manager who has more CL than him won 3 with Madrid the greatest spending club of all time and 2 with heavy spending Milan the biggest spenders of the 80s 90s and early 2000s
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Being the most spending club of all time has nothing to do with the squad a manager currently has at his disposal. Ancelotti has won his last two champions league with an excellent team, but also with a club that spent less money on transfers in the last decade than Leicester and Aston Villa, and obviously nowhere near City.
 
kaiser1 said:
They just finished trophyless, 18points off the league winner. 12months later they won every trophy in football and were tagged the best club football side ever seen
Like Enzo Maresca change Chelsea team and make them sextuple winners by next summer (Despite Chelsea winning the CL a few seasons ago)
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They ain't even gonna win free sex toy hand outs.
 
Marvin look out said:
Being the most spending club of all time has nothing to do with the squad a manager currently has at his disposal. Ancelotti has won his last two champions league with an excellent team, but also with a club that spent less money on transfers in the last decade than Leicester and Aston Villa, and obviously nowhere near City.
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They have spent less on transfers because of the prestige and status they hold that enables them to get the best players in the world on the cheap or at times for free, let alone the number of players who clearly show they are only going to one club. This baseline of power was built on what exactly if not being the highest spending club of all time breaking world record after world record for transfer fees? And pound for pound, the Real squad is better than the City squad, just like that legendary Milan squad in the mid '00s when you consider at the careers of those players outside Milan's eco system or the market value of the current Real players and what some of them have achieved outside their Real careers.
 
Stadjer said:
I dont think you can argue that. Barcelona considered selling Xavi to Chelsea and started van Bommel over him in a CL final. He was a good midfielder at that time but not the legendary midfielder he is consider now.

Xavi only became the great Xavi that we all remember since Pep became his manager.
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Xavi was great in Euro 2008 before managed by Pep.
 
Marvin look out said:
Being the most spending club of all time has nothing to do with the squad a manager currently has at his disposal. Ancelotti has won his last two champions league with an excellent team, but also with a club that spent less money on transfers in the last decade than Leicester and Aston Villa, and obviously nowhere near City.
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That is easy when due to your prestige and power, players run down their contract to sign for you. The best player in the world Mbappe with a value of over 200m in the market for free, Sign Alaba for free, Sign Kroos for a huge discount, Get Rudiger for free, Cortouis on a huge discount while other clubs have to pay full price for similar talents
 
He is a great great manager fact but how many managers world wide or in history coulda have walk into the teams/riches he had and get the same results?? Could many managers destroy the old firm stranglehold, win them a European cup and walk in to a majority struggling Manchester United and turn them into an institution and rip up that institution and continue to do it through generations??
 
Theonas said:
They have spent less on transfers because of the prestige and status they hold that enables them to get the best players in the world on the cheap or at times for free, let alone the number of players who clearly show they are only going to one club. This baseline of power was built on what exactly if not being the highest spending club of all time breaking world record after world record for transfer fees? And pound for pound, the Real squad is better than the City squad, just like that legendary Milan squad in the mid '00s when you consider at the careers of those players outside Milan's eco system or the market value of the current Real players and what some of them have achieved outside their Real careers.
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kaiser1 said:
That is easy when due to your prestige and power, players run down their contract to sign for you. The best player in the world Mbappe with a value of over 200m in the market for free, Sign Alaba for free, Sign Kroos for a huge discount, Get Rudiger for free, Cortouis on a huge discount while other clubs have to pay full price for similar talents
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I agree. Good examples, and that's without mentionning how they almost always get first dibs on the top young talents.

However this strategy has its limits as it's based on opportunities, which means you don't necessarily sign your first choices but the players who are available cheap or free. They signed Rudiger and Alaba, but maybe they would have preferred the younger Gvardiol or DeLigt.

Sometimes the opportunities are also just not there. They could have done with new full backs to replace the injury prone Mendy and the aging Carvajal a couple years ago, but they didn't want to fork out 120M.
 
Theonas said:
They have spent less on transfers because of the prestige and status they hold that enables them to get the best players in the world on the cheap or at times for free, let alone the number of players who clearly show they are only going to one club.
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kaiser1 said:
That is easy when due to your prestige and power, players run down their contract to sign for you. The best player in the world Mbappe with a value of over 200m in the market for free, Sign Alaba for free, Sign Kroos for a huge discount, Get Rudiger for free, Cortouis on a huge discount while other clubs have to pay full price for similar talents
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Not sure this holds up.

Valverde, Bellingham, Militao, Mendy, Modric,Tchouameni, Vini, Rodrygo, Lunin, Mendy, Ceballos, Brahim, Guler, all cost fair market value or higher. Carvajal, Nacho, Vazquez, García, and Joselu are all academy products and there are associated discounts when it comes to that. That's the bulk of the squad. All that remains is Courtois, Rudiger, Alaba, Kroos, and Camavinga.

iirc RM only "spend less" than others in that they sell very well.
 
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kaiser1 said:
They just finished trophyless, 18points off the league winner. 12months later they won every trophy in football and were tagged the best club football side ever seen
Like Enzo Maresca change Chelsea team and make them sextuple winners by next summer (Despite Chelsea winning the CL a few seasons ago)
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He inherited one of the best squads in Europe at Barca with a spine of world class players in their prime like Messi, Iniesta, and Xavi then spend a whole load of money buying players like Dani Alves to stengthen them even more.

At FC Bayern he inherited the reigning European Champions and despite again being allowed to spent he took them backwards.

At City he inherited a team that had just reached the Champions League Semi Final and an unlimited transfer budget to spend and it still took him 5 attempts to get them to the final and 7 attempts to win it.
 
Isotope said:
Xavi was great in Euro 2008 before managed by Pep.
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Pep obviously did a good job with Barca, and was perfect to take over that team. However, what he inherited was a unique crop of excellent players coming up through the academy and Messi who was becoming the best player in the world, at a time when the Spain NT were really cementing their place at the top of world football. He made sure the players strengths were fully utilised by emphasising the tiki-taka approach which was endemic in the academy. He didn't make those players what they were though, and Barca were nowhere near as broken as people like to suggest before he took over. Barcelona established themselves as a major power again under Rijkaard. A bit like City, they were already challenging in Europe and winning leagues before Pep arrived. But people like to suggest they were nothing before he came in and turned water into wine.
 
wildflower2007 said:
So still a European trophy. Picking straws here mate, blimy.
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Just being factually accurate. When you write Euro Cup or European Cup with both words capitalized it literally refers to the European Cup, the predecessor to the CL, not any European trophy in general and not the Cup Winners Cup in particular.
 
It has to be Ancelotti for now based on achievement, longevity and places where he's won. This is despite Pep playing a key role in the football revolution that we now call the modern game, and being no slouch in the titles department either.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
He inherited one of the best squads in Europe at Barca with a spine of world class players in their prime like Messi, Iniesta, and Xavi then spend a whole load of money buying players like Dani Alves to stengthen them even more.

At FC Bayern he inherited the reigning European Champions and despite again being allowed to spent he took them backwards.

At City he inherited a team that had just reached the Champions League Semi Final and an unlimited transfer budget to spend and it still took him 5 attempts to get them to the final and 7 attempts to win it.
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That squad only became ne of the best in hindsight, In Summer 2008 Xavi was seen as a problem, too small and being shipped away

What did he spend at Bayern and who did he spend on at Bayern compared to what others were doing? Most people at Bayern consider Peps spell as a positive time

At city he inherited a team that just finished 4th level on points with LvG, the 17th oldest squad in the league
 
Zen86 said:
A bit like City, they were already challenging in Europe and winning leagues before Pep arrived. But people like to suggest they were nothing before he came in and turned water into wine.
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I don't think anyone has suggested that Barcelona were "nothing" before Pep Guardiola.
 
I haven't seen them.
I have seen the correct assessment that Barcelona in the two years before he took them, were not doing so hot.

Obviously they were more than 'nothing' the club had won the Champions League three seasons before his appointment. And had won titles before and had the famous Dream Team. People are aware of this because Guardiola was part of that team.
 
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oneniltothearsenal said:
Just being factually accurate. When you write Euro Cup or European Cup with both words capitalized it literally refers to the European Cup, the predecessor to the CL, not any European trophy in general and not the Cup Winners Cup in particular.
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I said a Euro cup, because A. It was in Europe and B. It was a cup.

It doesn't take away from the fact that the point I was making is that Fergie won a "Euro Cup" with a tinpot team like Aberdeen. That's the real point here. Pep hasn't done that, which is why, for me, he's not the greatest manager of all time.

Capital letters, don't change this FACT*

* FACT: something that's true, despite capitalisation.
 
wildflower2007 said:
I said a Euro cup, because A. It was in Europe and B. It was a cup.

It doesn't take away from the fact that the point I was making is that Fergie won a "Euro Cup" with a tinpot team like Aberdeen. That's the real point here. Pep hasn't done that, which is why, for me, he's not the greatest manager of all time.

Capital letters, don't change this FACT*

* FACT: something that's true, despite capitalisation.
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He won a Cup Winners Cup not a Euro Cup as you wrote.

I get you meant just a European cup so just admit you wrote it wrong and move on.
 
kaiser1 said:
The team that started the CL final in 2006
Valdes
Oleguer Marquez Puyol VanBronckorst
VanBommel, Edmilson Deco
Guily Etoo Ronaldinho

Team that started 2009 final

Valdes
Puyol Toure Pique Sylvinho
Xavi Busquets Iniesta
Messi Etoo Henry

The bold are the only thing common in both starting 11. A completely different team
Click to expand...
Xavi and Messi didn't start the 2006 CL final because of injuries. Xavi had just come back from a knee injury after 6 months and Messi was still hadn't recovered from the muscle injury picked up against Chelsea
 
RedRocket9908 said:
Look at the squads and transfer funds he has had over those 16 years, winning only 3 with those teams and resources is a terrible return for a so called world class manager.
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Ancelotti was at high spending clubs all his career baring short stints in Regianna, Napoli and Everton, and only won 6 league titles.

Bottled Ligue 1 after he was given PSG mid-season sitting on first place and given further world class signings. Lost the league to Montpellier of all clubs.

Bottled Serie A twice in a row with Juventus to Lazio and Roma, who haven't won it since.
 
Now that we finally have a confirmed date for the start of the hearing against City, what will it do to Lord Guardiola's reputation if they are found guilty?

He's not the GOAT and never will be - Sir Alex holds this title. But, will Pep still remain in the conversation about the greatest managers of all time, or will a potential guilty verdict forever tarnish his legacy?

Will he resign as he once promised to do if the accusations were proven to be true, and then plead ignorance about the whole thing before flitting off to his next perfect situation?
 
Probably yes IMO, tactically he's way more influential than man-manger Fergie who relied on assistant coaches to handle the tactical side for him and Pep's brand of football has inspired his fellow coaches like Tuchel and Arteta to success unlike Fergie's disciples like Hughes, Neville, or Solskjaer. All that's left for him to do is to take on a challenge like the England job and win something with "perennial underdogs", then all of UK will ignore those 115 charges and suck him off for decades :lol:
 
DarkLord1984 said:
Which we all know he'll never do.
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There's a pretty significant upside to this endeavor in terms of the ability to cement his reputation by managing a team of apparent underdogs that are individually more talented than they've ever looked in an England kit, given that if he does want to leave City in 2025 due to the fallout of the 115 charges, Barcelona is currently financially strapped and his Catalonian loyalties may stand in the way of the Spain gig so the England gig may provide with him with a convenient excuse to exit City if they are hit with a point deduction.
 
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I'd say no. In my opinion, I don't think Pep is a very tactical manager, but his style of play alone makes him an S-tier manager. However, SAF is much greater in every other aspect. I'm extremely biased toward SAF. I literally cried when we had a medical emergency.
 
Schmeichels pinky said:
Can you elaborate?
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His style of play is already superior to that of many teams and managers from any era. However, if he were better prepared or made tactical maneuvers in his CL losses, he would have won many more titles. Again, I am extremely biased, so my brain tries to find flaws in him to defend SAF's greatness.
 
If anything leaving City would enhance his managerial reputation, at this point nobody cares if he wins 5 leagues or 9 leagues with that team, whereas if he went somewhere else and won it would only strengthen his argument.
 
lexisonfire said:
Probably yes IMO, tactically he's way more influential than man-manger Fergie who relied on assistant coaches to handle the tactical side for him and Pep's brand of football has inspired his fellow coaches like Tuchel and Arteta to success unlike Fergie's disciples like Hughes, Neville, or Solskjaer. All that's left for him to do is to take on a challenge like the England job and win something with "perennial underdogs", then all of UK will ignore those 115 charges and suck him off for decades :lol:
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What the actual feck?
 
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